Chapter 127

“Well, I’m heading back out. Don’t fight, and try to get along. Contact me if anything happens.”

Before leaving my imagery, I gave both Bel and Sis a kiss on the forehead as a parting gift and a word of encouragement.

And just as I was about to kiss Shia’s forehead last…

Thump!

In an instant, Bel’s output surged! My lips, aimed for her forehead, slipped downward.
I had been moving with an acceleration of about 2,200G in mind and had let my guard down slightly; the sudden load jumping to 3,000G made my reaction just a split second too slow.

Chu.

As our lips met, Shia’s eyes grew as wide as lanterns.

I stayed like that for a moment before pulling away with an awkward laugh.

“Heh. Bel… that was quite the prank.”

“Huhu. Shia has worked the hardest this time, hasn’t she? I thought this much of a reward was appropriate.”

Shia smiled, her face slightly flushed.

“I see. I’m usually the type not to put much meaning behind such obvious acts… but this feels surprisingly not bad. My trembling has stopped.”

“R-really? Well, that’s a relief then.”

“We will handle things here, so finish up your business and return quickly. Playing together in this imagery isn’t bad, but… I truly wish to fall asleep nestled tightly in your arms in reality. I’ve been quite short on sleep lately.”

I followed Shia’s lead and gave a thin smile, extending my fist. Shia extended her own small fist and bumped it against mine.

Bump.

Kisses are fine, but for us right now, this suits us better.

“I’m off.”

“I shall be waiting.”

I slipped out of the imagery and returned to reality.

One of the things I like most about my rank increasing is that I can enter and exit my imagery at will, without needing the Lake of Gouphus or having to trek all the way to the moon, which serves as the exit.

That just shows how horrific the Lake of Gouphus is. Even now, as a Potestates, just thinking about that taste and visual makes my mind reel.

‘It’s a bit of a shame that time acceleration doesn’t work, but it can’t be helped. It seems the acceleration is blocked if anyone other than myself is connected.’

Regardless, when I opened my eyes, the surroundings were moving chaotically, smeared with all sorts of colors.

The landscape was entirely different from before I closed my eyes. I must have drifted somewhere else while I was focused for a moment.

I didn’t place much meaning on that chaotic feast of colors. To a three-dimensional being like me, phenomena occurring in higher dimensions are incomprehensible—and there is no need to understand them.

I mean, I could probably understand them if I put in the mental effort, but… why bother?

I opened my territory and searched for three-dimensional coordinates. My senses picked up Disis, her kin, and my five clones. Miraculously, it seemed neither side had suffered any casualties yet.

I smirked as I decided on the coordinates to burst out from.

“Now… popping back out exactly where I went in would be too dry. Should I put on a bit of a surprise show?”

Chel, Ailet, Elizabeth, and the pets—who were watching the battle from about three kilometers away—were dazed by the mythical clash unfolding across the sky.

Brilliant pillars of light and violent tsunamis of red mana embroidered the heavens as they collided.

At a glance, the red mana seemed overwhelming, but a closer look proved otherwise.
The pillars of light stood firm like tetrapods in the sea, cutting, carving, shedding, and twisting the red tsunami.

The red mana seemed to condense for a moment before soaring beyond the heavens, pressing down on the light pillars.

Even this, the pillars of light twisted away, forcing the trajectory of the red mana to bend.

Kuaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!

An overwhelming amount of impact, enough to distort space itself. Fragments of mana scattered in every direction.

The group gasped at the sight.

A premonition of danger. No, a premonition of death that transcended mere danger.

It was a sight they had never seen before, yet just as a prey animal instinctively knows the danger of a predator, they knew by instinct that this spectacle signaled their demise.

Every single fragment of mana flying toward them was something so overwhelming that aura couldn’t even compare. One could tell just by looking. Even a single shard the size of a fingernail would likely turn them into a mist of blood.

And at that very moment, as they prepared for death without even being able to blink, the snow-white mana swords that had helped them escape the tower gathered before them, forming an asterisk-shaped shield.

Kwakwakwakwakwakwakwak!!

“……!”

“……!!”

“……!!!”

The swords, having absorbed the shockwaves and mana fragments, did not leave. They stationed themselves around the women as if escorting them.

Chel, knowing these were the creations of Sword God, muttered blankly.

“What exactly are we looking at right now?”

Ailet replied in a whisper.

“…It must be a scene out of myth.”

“Ah, perhaps. This is exactly how the fights between Outer Gods and deities described in the scriptures must have looked.”

“I’m… recording a video right now. How much do you think we could get if we sold this?”

“I wonder… if it’s a Magic Tower, they might hand over the entire tower just to get their hands on it.”

“Then… we’re rich.”

“…I suppose so.”

The battle seemed to enter a brief lull, but soon two women appeared beside the Demon King, appearing to be her subordinates.

The wings of light on their backs were three pairs.

Anyone who had heard a sermon in a temple even once could easily tell what those wings meant.

The 9th-grade Equilibrium Heaven has one pair. The 8th-grade Archangel has two pairs. The 7th-grade Principality has three pairs. The 6th-grade Potestates has five pairs.

“The 7th grade. The Seat of Principality…”

Chel let out a heavy sigh at the sight.

Even if they weren’t enough to rival a 6th-grade Potestates, she thought two 7th-grade beings would be enough to tilt an even fight to one side.

But in the next moment, five snow-white clones appeared beside the Sword God—no, the Martial God, as they called him.

They, too, were beings with three pairs of wings.

Just when it seemed the Martial God finally had the upper hand, he suddenly tore through space and vanished inside.

And soon, the seven Principalities and one Potestates-class Demon King began to clash violently.

Kwang! Kuaaaaaang! Kukuaaaaang!!

The Martial God’s clones split into two groups. Three toward the Demon King, and two toward the Demon King’s subordinates.

The latter held the advantage over the Demon King’s subordinates, who looked like elves, despite being of the same rank.

Without appearing to expend much effort, they smoothly parried the aggressive attacks and backed the elves into a corner.

On the other hand, the three clones clinging to the Demon King were struggling.

To begin with, the output was so vastly different that the close-quarters combat they specialized in simply wasn’t working.

Nevertheless,

Kwagagagagagagagwang!!!

The three do not fall.

While they fundamentally engage in individual combat, they coordinate instinctively: two of them intercept attacks too heavy for one, and all three unite to block strikes that would overwhelm two.

“You flies…!”

A scream filled with such intense fury that it reached them even three kilometers away.

With that cry, two of the clones—who had been maintaining three-dimensional maneuvers through the air—were suddenly snared by crimson ribbons of mana resembling Möbius strips.

It was likely magic. Since the Demon King had never used magic until now, the clones seemed to have been caught off guard.

Immediately after, a colossal pillar of crimson mana lunged toward the two.

That pillar was a full-powered attack from a Potestates-class being. No matter how strong a Principality-class clone might be, a direct hit would mean certain annihilation.

But in that instant, the last remaining clone threw itself in front of the pillar of light.

A snow-white sword of mana, resembling the one the MC called Astraphe, tore through the air in rapid succession. In a flash, seven dimensional fractures opened in a cruciform pattern.

The mana pillar collided with the fractures. The rifts held for a heartbeat before overflowing and shattering one by one.

Though its momentum had weakened somewhat during the process of breaking through the dimensional fractures, the mana pillar continued to descend with terrifying force.

At that moment, the clone began to glow even brighter, assimilating itself into the sword it held. As the clone dissolved into the blade, the sword expanded to nearly fifty meters, parrying the falling mana pillar at an angle.

Ku-du-du-du-du-du-du!!

The sword cracked and splintered before finally snapping with a sickening rupture.

However, thanks to that sacrifice, the trajectory of the mana pillar was finally diverted.

Kuaaaaaaaaaang!!

“He blocked that…!?”

Immediately after, the two clones who had survived the crisis thanks to their comrade’s sacrifice shook off their restraints. They retrieved the broken pieces of the sword and fitted them back together.

Being beings of mana, the fallen clone manifested once more.

However, the damage was undeniable; the three pairs of wings had been reduced to two. The clone’s rank had dropped.

Elizabeth, watching Chel focus on the battle, whispered a question.

“What are you even seeing? All I see is a bunch of flashing lights….”

“Me too.”

“Then why are you staring so hard?”

“I’m not looking… I’m feeling it. That’s enough to tell the general direction of the fight.”

After a brief silence, Elizabeth voiced a belated question.

“Just… what is that mister’s true identity?”

Ailet, ever the mage, offered a reasonably coherent hypothesis despite the situation.

“Perhaps he is a Martial God who descended from the heavens?”

“A Martial God from the heavens?”

“Yes. Honestly, it’s been two hundred years since the Demon King started this rampage. It’s about time an event like this happened. They’ve been standing by as spectators for far too long, after all.”

Elizabeth let out a hollow laugh.

“Hehe… So, I was just hanging out and cracking jokes with a god who came down from the sky?”

“You’ve got it easy. I was pestering him to let me use him as a test subject.”

Chel looked uncomfortable as she listened to their conversation.

“I… I practically sexually harassed him. I kept telling him he had a great body and sturdy thighs, and I even slapped his butt….”

“That sounds like a one-way ticket to divine punishment.”

“You’re definitely getting smote.”

“…….”

After a moment of silence, Chel burst into a sudden, fitful laugh.

“Argh, whatever! We don’t even know if we’ll live or die in the next minute, so who cares about divine punishment later? If the Demon King wins over there, we’re all dead anyway.”

But it was at that exact moment.

A stray fragment of the mana scattered by the Demon King suddenly streaked toward their position.

The mana swords guarding the area flew forward in unison to block the ominous wave of energy, but the amount of mana contained within was so overwhelming that the swords shattered instantly like fragile crackers.

The speed was so great that the group only realized the situation after seeing the swords break. Just as they were about to panic,

Two figures blurred across the three-kilometer gap in an instant, folding space itself as they blocked the path to protect the women.

Kwang!

On the left was the Demon King’s subordinate, an elf with blue hair.

On the right was the clone that had been fighting her.

Ku-du-du-du-duk!

After straining to neutralize and disperse the mana wave, the two immediately aimed their weapons at each other again.

And right then, discovering a familiar face behind the blue hair fluttering in the wind, Chel cried out in shock.

“Kelly…!?”